Thursday, October 02, 2008

Left the team after FA negotiations with Darryl Sutter fell apart in the summer of ’04, but seems ecstatic to be back.Was inconsistent in his return with the Flames in the spring, occasionally taking bad penalties.Either he has good chemistry with Iginla, or Iginla is so good he makes it look like he has chemistry with Conroy.Can be physical, but isn’t, or at least isn't often enough.Most talkative Flame.

07-08 Evaluation:As much as I enjoy Craig Conroy, there is little to suggest he isn't on a relatively steep career decline in terms of ability. While the mind seems willing the flesh seems weak. Kent has made it a mission to articulate Conroy's offensive deficiencies and while I don't completely agree with Kent (I believe there are worse options on the Flames as well as better) he does have a very valid point. Conroy should not be on the first line.

While Conroy's behindthenet.ca column here actually looks pretty respectable I think there are a couple of things we need to remember:

Firstly, he was playing with topnotch teammates. Funny enough, Langkow is rated as having better teammates than Conroy which would imply that Langkow was bringing down the line, not Conroy - hey, I guess desjardin's system isn't perfect. The most important teammate anyone on the Flames can have though is Iginla, and Conroy often played with Iginla, and there is no doubt Iginla was hoisting Conroy's numbers up. Other things to note; Iginla always played against the top competition, therefore, Conroy played the top competition.

It is curious of course that Conroy had the top 2nd assists on the team. 2nd assists are a bit of an anomaly because there are so many different ways we can conceive of them happening - while first assists would tend mostly to be a direct intention of a scoring play, a 2nd assist could be as simple as a breakout pass or a dump in. Why does Conroy have the best on the team?

One theory is that it's just pure fluke - someone has to have the most second assists and Conroy just happens to be that person. I think the mostly likely explanation though is that his linemates (Iginla and either Tanguay or Huselius) happen to finish a lot of plays, and judging from the number of 1st assists Conroy has, they finish a lot of plays that he's not directly involved in, at least not puck wise. Anyone disagree?

I've been ragging on Conroy a bit and I really should add that he does still have some value. He reads the play well defensively and is used to playing pretty decent competition. There shouldn't be any reason why he can't be a very competent shutdown guy for the Flames, something the Flames haven't really had for a while.